


What Was Lost When the Gods Went to War

by Kellicus_Maximus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Death, Depression, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 13:07:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16893189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kellicus_Maximus/pseuds/Kellicus_Maximus
Summary: “I was Solas first. “Fen’Harel” came later…”While Solas believes that he has a solid plan for defeating the entire Pantheon, he knows that they would still have too many faithful followers from the Dalish. In a moment of lonely frustration, Solas decides to share the true story of the Creators creation and the war that left them sealed away in the hopes of turning the tide in his favor.





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> So...I've had this idea floating around in my head since I first played Inquisition and with DA4 likely to decimate my headcannon, I figured I should at least share it for everyone else to suffer thru as well.

_Inquisitor,_

_I am aware that you still search for me, but it is a foolhardy mission; doomed to fail. You are wasting what precious time you have left in an attempt to stop the inevitable. And while I suppose that you think me a monster now, I am doing what is necessary to save the people. My people. It may be detestable in your eyes, but someone must make the difficult choices._

_Surely you can understand why I must do this? This world is plagued with death, blight, demons, war, fear and terrible creatures. And it does not have to be so. Without the Veil, people could live in peace. They did previously and they could again in a new age of peace and prosperity._

_All change is brought about by Chaos. It is the only way. You cannot stop the path I am on. As I have said before, this is my battle, not yours. There is no one else with the ability to destroy the Veil and with it gone, with magic flowing into the world again, it can be reshaped and made right. I wish there was another way, but there isn’t._

_A very long time ago, I was just a man with noble ideals. I joined a cause not unlike your own Inquisition. When we became corrupted by power, I took up yet another noble cause to free the downtrodden People. And I made a terrible mistake. In doing so, I condemned them all to death. Their downfall is on my conscience. All those lives lost, destroyed because of my arrogance. I exiled my own family to give the People the chance at freedom, and they could do nothing with it. Everything was lost and no one was saved._

_Do not think this is just about mending my error. That is not the case. It is about making the world a better place again. All living things will continue to suffer if I do not free them from the doom I placed upon them._

_Sincerely,_

_Solas_

 

With a frustrated sigh, Solas scraped the quill across the page before crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into a pile with the rest. He bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. The wind whistled through the open window causing the candles to flicker with little hissing whispers. He sat listening to it for some minutes, silently contemplating. Why was this so difficult? In fact, why did he even care to reach out to the Inquisitor to soothe things over?

This was nonsense, beginning to border on the obsessive. For so many months now, he had struggled with himself existentially. All brought about by a simple confrontation with a being that shouldn’t have even counted as a person. But that was the problem, he sighed. These, “people” knew nothing. Just shadows and fragments of what they should have been. It didn’t qualify them to count for anything. And yet, it left Solas thinking about the man he used to be. In a time almost completely forgotten now, when he’d been a god…a savior…and his Evanuris had looked out upon the People and declared that they didn’t count. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

After everything, all that he’d done in his life to prove that power did not give anyone the right to count more than someone else. How close was he to imitating them? The quiet of the night was deafening to him where once he'd had a sweet voice speaking comforting wisdom. For a moment, Solas tried to pretend that the wind was her whispering to him. Palms pressed together in his lap, leaned back and slouched; lost in old memories.

History had not been kind to his legacy. In fact, only two versions of the tale existed still and they were both the propaganda from wartime. It seemed his life, every twist and turn it had ever taken, had been smoothed over by time until almost none of his true story was left. The Dalish feared him as a destructive monster. His family called him traitor. Freed from their chains, the slaves had hailed him as a savior. And to the Inquisition, that rag-tag band of misfits so much like the Evanuris in the beginning, he’d been an ally. A friend even. At least before he’d revealed himself. Probably safer to assume that he’d made a fair amount of enemies out of them after that.

He wished again for the millionth time that he’d never unleashed the Veil. It would certainly have eliminated a lot of problems that he now faced. For all his wisdom, he had made some very poor choices. Ones he had retraced, over and over again, reliving every tiny detail a thousand times over. And sadly, time travel was not nearly as feasible as Magister Alexius’s studies made it seem. It was terribly fascinating with the potential for being something greater. Almost painfully he let that thought go. The power was not sustainable and placed too great a strain on the world state. Even a world without the Veil. But that didn’t stop Solas from imagining how different things could have been and maybe…just maybe…except, it never would have.

This path to war had been inevitable since the very beginning and perhaps, that was it. Maybe he was always meant to be the villain in the story. Even when he was part of the Evanuris, he was an odd loner on the outskirts of the group. In the Inquisition as well. Not that he wanted to be the hero, not really; he just didn’t want to be the villain. So what if bad things had to happen? They were for a greater good. That was the brutal reality of any war. You didn’t have to be the hero in the story to make the hard choices, you just had to make the hard choices to win the war. Solas blinked and slowly brought the candles around him back to life. The dark, however; remained inside of him, twisting his thoughts. He was the anti-hero. It was all subjective to be sure, but he wasn’t a villain. No, he was the one willing to do the things necessary, right or wrong, to get everyone back to right.

Even as his emotional turmoil swirled through him, the wheels in his head began turning. Here he sat, practically in exile, scrapping together these elvish outcasts and downtrodden. He shuddered. They praised and worshiped their so-called Creators and wore their brands, unaware of what an atrocity it was. The countless number of people sacrificed in the name of a patron god, for vanity or in pointless wars over nothing more than slighted feelings. All the pride they held for their “traditions”, not even knowing the true depth of achievements the Elvhenan had reached. They didn’t deserve to be people if they wanted to believe in that drivel.

But, to be fair, Solas knew that it was his fault. The rebellion had not been his idea, but it had not gone to plan after the loss of the founders. He had bungled it, rushing too quickly in his grief and anger; in his fear of losing his loved ones. ‘Nothing had gone right,’ he thought to himself as he ran his finger across the jaw bone around his neck, his eyes lost focus and watered. The haunting memory of her face, the look of fear and surprise as that monster had taken her face in his hands and then the way the light in her eyes faded after the sickening crack; her head turned in an impossible angle as she crumbled to the floor.

Solas inhaled suddenly, clenching his fists; the cords flexing in his neck as he struggled to push down the rage he had woken. He'd almost forgotten its depths during his time with the Inquisition and their camaraderie.

It was blind faith, from the thousands who had worshiped, that had exasperated the power and madness the "gods" wielded. And it would happen all over again if he didn’t reveal them for who they really were. With a flourish, he snatched up his quill and a fresh stack of parchment. When the bastards were freed, he would make sure that none of them had any followers left.


	2. Solas Writes a Book - When the Gods Went to War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon the realization that the Dalish will continue to support the Evanuris without sufficient reason, Solas starts the story of his history with "Creators".

When the Gods Went to War

Prologue

This world was not always so dark and violent, though that is often how new ages start. That too is where our story starts. Set in a time before the elvish gods, before the Veil even existed, was a war of bloodshed and violence that surpasses your wildest imaginings. And it was amidst this crusade against the ones you call the “Old Gods” that came the foundation of the Evanuris and the Elvhenan Empire. And eventually from that, the world as you currently know it.

Now if you are thinking that the name Evanuris sounds familiar, but can’t quite place it, you may also think of this as the backstory to the ones who would become known as the Creators and the Forgotten Ones and even the story of Fen’Harel’s infamous betrayal which the Dalish, of course, have retold around campfires for many generations. A little truth and a lot of misinformation. Though to their credit, much of the original story was intentionally erased or kept secret from the people deemed…shall we say, inferior to those noble and mighty gods. And so, much of your history and your heritage has remained shrouded in a mythology created by those who sought power.

I will warn you now, though; this is not a story for the faint of heart. Their history is full of dark secrets, cruelty and unspeakable horrors. What they became will shock you; leave you sick at heart. And while I wish I could spare you from this, honestly it is time that you were told the truth.


End file.
